I have a lot to ponder as I resume my normal routines. At Costco yesterday I wandered by the fresh (?) seafood display...halibut at $7.99/lb! Unreal! Cheaper than right off the boat! Who are these people??? The scallops looked sad and slimy and discolored. I couldn't help but wonder where they came from and how long they traveled to get to our tables.
Today I finally succumbed to a semi-normal level of self-grooming and got my first manicure and pedicure in 3 months. Heavenly. It's nice to be rough and ready and tough and all, but what girl doesn't like pretty hands and feet? Besides, I've got a busy couple weeks of pool parties and beach time.
We stayed there overnight because the weather forcast predicted winds of 70 mph. Not so nice. It was pretty nasty, but more than anything just sorta boring. We did a lot of sleeping, and I eventually got a game of Scrabble out of Malcolm and Jeff (I lost miserably). It was a full moon, and I remembered the last harvest moon that Tom pointed out on the boat exactly a month before. As we pulled out of the bay 24 hours later, there was some brief discussion over the radio as to whether we should trade some scallops for salmon with a small seiner boat a few hundred yards away. I thought that was pretty cool; trading on the high seas just like the old days.
Jeff sorts the world's crappiest haul
I put a few more pictures up on the website, and also some short videos. They're pretty basic, just me saying the same thing over and over ("It's my last day on the Kilkenny. *sigh*") and showing you my little reading nook in the fos'c'le as well as my knee, boot, book, etc. I admit, I'm not the most exciting filmmaker.
I've been accepted as an observer for the California/Oregon drift gillnet fishery targeting swordfish. The training starts on the 22nd, and I'll be based out of Long Beach. There's more shoreside work required of me, but I will be on boats out of local ports ranging from San Diego to Northern Cal. I think it will be cool to live close to home where I can hopefully pick up some contract work so that I can start saving up for Thailand! God willing, I want to try and spend Christmas there with the kids and have a reunion with my good friends Juan and Laura that I met in Kenya. We'll see...
These are then sorted into broken and unbroken baskets, weighed, counted, and measured. I also collect any crab bycatch and measure, sex, and age them as well. Once per day I do a haul composition where I weigh everything that comes up on deck. I talked to Fish & Game about counting starfish though since there can be up to 600 lbs/haul and I was breaking my ass trying to weigh them all. Yikes. This haul compis a lot of work, but also really neat, almost every one has been different. The diversity of animals here is just staggering. And hardly any dead fish,yay! I take a lunch break around 3, and try to get a jump on paperwork. We eat dinner around 9, and I clean up the dishes and the galley before my showerless cleanup routine (which involves baby wipes and cornstarch in my hair). I usually go to bed at 10 or 11. I'm so spoiled; the crew doesn't make it in until at least midnight, a lot of times later. They try and get 4 hours of sleep at night, and then go down for 2 hour naps during the day. These guys really are heads and tails above the rest, really truly genuinely nice men. All of them are married and totally respectful and cool and interesting.There are only 3 deckhands, the captain, and myself this trip, so it's a nice tight little team. I'm off to finish up my book and hit the hay.